A Morphosyntactic Analysis of the Speech of Schizophrenic Patients in Cameroon

This work dwelt on the Morphosyntactic analysis of the speech of some Schizophrenic patients in Cameroon. The researcher was poised at giving an analysis of the Morphosyntactic situation in the language of schizophrenic patients. The study included 09 patients who were hospitalized at the Jamot hospital, which is found in Cameroon’s capital city, Yaoundé. The Jamot Hospital is a reference center that handles mental health issues. The problem we set out to solve in this study was that of demystifying the mentality people had about mental health. Many people thought that people suffering from mental illnesses were not capable of communicating appropriately. This study was carried out in Cameroon because there was little or no work done in the country in the domain. The place of the study was appropriate because the Jamot Hospital has a psychiatric center and the unit receives patients nationwide. The researcher chose the Jamot Hospital because of the quasi certainty of finding patients who came from different regions of the country and the diagnosis is up to standard in the place giving that her staff are made up of specialists. The data of this study were collected with the use of interviews. Interviews were recorded and they were later transcribed manually by the researcher. Data were analysed using a qualitative technique. The results from the analysis revealed that the morphosyntax of schizophrenic patients are of good standard. The patients made good declarative utterances. Interrogative, complex as well as affirmative utterances were also properly handled by the patients. However, the patients provided very poor answers to questions. Furthermore, they were also unable to make use of exclamative utterances. The importance of this study is that it will help to demystify the perception people had about mental health and it will also edify public opinion about the language of mental patients.